The Touch of Earth
by Chasing Liquor
Summary: No one hugged anyone, and no one told them that tears were okay. Maybe Atlantis hadn't trapped them. Maybe they'd trapped each other. McKayCadman
1. Chapter 1

A/N: Hello, all. I hate to have multiple stories running at the same time, but this one wouldn't leave me alone. There's an action or suspense component to it, but that's not really where the meat is, I don't think. It was mostly watching "Duet" and "Before I Sleep" that kind of planted the seed for this in my mind. But anyway, this will probably be fairly short, two or three chapters. I hope you enjoy and reviews of any sort are much appreciated. Thanks.

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**The Touch of Earth**

McKay's gaze drifted past Cadman and up over the next ridge, which looked terribly daunting from where he stood, hunched down hands over knees, panting like a Golden Retriever he'd watched suck in its last futile breaths when he was a boy. His father had said the sight would do him good. What a thing to say to your son.

"Rodney, I knew you were no track star, but this is getting ridiculous."

The scientist managed a snarl, but as his went, this was a rather mild one. Cadman's teasing voice didn't pack quite the same antagonistic punch that it used to. Somewhere along the way, he'd stopped despising her company, and for reasons he held no hope of unearthing, he wasn't sure she'd ever despised his.

"You'll forgive me if I'm too busy keeping the universe cogent to run the treadmill three times a week," he said, his bombastic reply robbing what breath he'd managed to bring back to his lungs. "Just... wait... a second."

Cadman smiled, letting out an amused sigh as she found a sturdy rock to park herself on. She used McKay's delay to reacquaint herself with the view. The sun, once regal and blinding, accepted with dignity its waning royalty, dipping lower and lower as the minutes passed, almost fully submerged now under the near ridge. It was one of those unsuspecting moments that you can't plan for, but that you know you'll never forget. She took an idolatrous breath and let her eyes shut.

McKay watched her curiously. She had always struck him as the type who would appreciate the artful, especially in nature. At least one of his early assumptions about his body's former tenant seemed to be holding up to scrutiny. All the others had long since perished, replaced by new theories and observations about the buoyant Lieutenant that he wished he were less curious to explore.

Cadman surprised him when she spoke.

"Do you ever feel trapped, Rodney?"

"Whenever you're in shouting distance."

His acerbity didn't deter her. It never had.

"It's nice to get out here like this. Atlantis is beautiful – the architecture and the spirit – but sometimes I can feel it swallowing me."

McKay looked away uncomfortably, straightening up, slinging his pack back over his shoulder.

"A tragic case of indigestion for the city, I'm sure," he said dismissively, rudely. "Can we go on?"

Cadman stood, watching him disquisitively for a moment. She knew he'd wanted to say something else, something more serious, something less abrasive. The moment was gone, though, so she gathered her own discarded pack and led onward, contenting herself with emptier banter.

"Carson told me that new lab aid's got her eye on you."

McKay stiffened.

"I wouldn't know."

Cadman laughed.

"Well, of course _you_ wouldn't know, Rodney."

"Hey!" he snapped. "I _damn well **do** know_, thank you very much. I just want to, uh, save her... public embarrassment. She's not really my type."

"You have a type?"

His exaggerated nod was all too predictable.

"Yes, I have a type! I like, um, you know... gorgeous blonde geniuses whose intelligence is almost in league with mine."

Cadman didn't say anything for a bit, amusing herself with the prospect of McKay trying to court Sam Carter. It wasn't anything in particular about Sam, though. McKay attempting to court anyone was a difficult concept to get her mind around. Cadman had seen his spectacular failure with Katie Brown... though, to be fair, she hadn't exactly lobbed him a homerun pitch by inviting Carson.

She was suddenly very curious how things turned out when he was left to his own devices. It didn't seem he had any great wealth of experience with women, but there had surely been a few over the years. She'd tried to get the dirt from Carson on just that subject, but McKay wasn't exactly a Truth or Dare veteran. She doubted anyone was privy to those particulars.

Cadman's voice was patronizing when she spoke again, but somehow it didn't seem mocking or insulting to the scientist's ears. It was almost comforting.

"Well, she seemed like a nice girl, Rodney. You need to get out of that lab once in a while."

He surprised her with a soft sigh.

"Yeah."

"You spend so much time in there, sometimes you gotta feel -"

McKay met her eyes.

"Trapped."

She managed something resembling a nod. That one word, offered as the ending to a sentence she'd uttered and not him, was the most candor he'd ever offered her on a personal level. She shouldn't have smiled. It wasn't something to be jocund about, but she couldn't help it, and she felt a deep satisfaction when his lips twitched with the threat of his own smile.

"I like it there. Things make sense in there," he said. "Well, that Twilight Zone kind of sense at least."

Cadman watched him with that same inquiring expression Kate Heightmeyer might.

"And they don't make sense anywhere else?"

McKay stuttered nonsense for a moment before narrowing his eyes and taking decidedly harder steps, mashing his feet into the ground.

"Don't do that," he bristled.

"Don't do what?"

"Reconnaissance for Carson or Kate or whoever the hell you're asking these questions for."

Cadman felt a weight fall on her shoulders. Trying to make friends with this man was the most physically trying thing she'd done today. His pessimism and fermented distrust in all things not McKay were almost disturbing.

"I'm just trying to make conversation, Rodney. That's what friends do."

He'd readied a retort, but his mind caught on the word "friends." It sat on its tongue, biding its time as he pondered it the way he might a peace offering from the Wraith.

Cadman couldn't for the life of her figure why this mattered to her so much. Maybe it was the incomprehensibly intimate experience they'd shared or maybe it was because Carson considered McKay one of his best friends, but she knew she wasn't going to be satisfied until he trusted her. He needed something desperately and there wasn't a soul in this life, the scientist included, who knew quite what it was.

"Friends," he said finally, distantly. "Hmm."

"Of course we're friends. I let you eat my power bar earlier, didn't I? You think I would have let Zelenka play the hypoglycemia card with me? Uh-uh, not a chance."

McKay was resourceful enough to be offended.

"Excuse me? 'Hypoglycemia _card_?' The Grim Reaper was pounding on my door with malice in his heart before I ate that!"

"I don't doubt it. He spends a lot of time on your welcome mat."

That slowed him down. Maybe it was because she was right or maybe their walk was just too tiring for him to be as disagreeable as usual, but he didn't say anything to that, just grunted in a way that told her she was right and that he was all too aware of it. There was silence for a while after that, but it wasn't at all awkward as it should perhaps have been.

When the quiet was broken, it was strangely McKay who spoke.

"You know, I try really hard not to like you."

"But you're unsuccessful."

"No, I'm successful. But it does take effort."

She smiled warmly and looked away.

"I think that's the closest you've ever come to complimenting me."

"It was meant as an insult. I'd appreciate it if you'd take it that way."

Her smile only broadened.

"My mistake."

McKay nodded, satisfied.

Cadman glanced over every few seconds after that, not minding that it was clear he noticed. His face was expressionless, but it was the kind of careful expressionlessness that ultimately failed to nurture the impression that he was disinterested. She knew he wanted to say something, even if he didn't.

Neither of them spoke again most of the way back to the jumper. McKay seemed lost in his own world and after wondering for a while just what world that was, Cadman lost herself in her own, wondering what they'd be serving in the mess later, wondering why things hadn't quite worked out with Carson, thinking about how great it was to spend Christmas with her family back on Earth.

The social dynamic back home was obviously completely different. It wasn't so much the fact that Atlantis had a professional and military code of conduct, though. Being human was just different on Earth. As far as they knew, their world housed the only human beings in the universe, so they clung to each other, touched each other, let one another know that they weren't alone.

The Atlantians knew that there were countless multitudes in the universe, knew that wherever they went, there would be people. So, in that regard, it was as if everyone had grown complacent, forgotten that the things they accidentally forsook were what made them human. Everyone was always at arm's length, always more conscious of appearances and matters of self than they were about kinship.

People died on this expedition. People died and the ones they left behind would say nice things about them, spare some kind words of consolation to those whose grieving was particularly severe, but no one hugged anyone and no one told them that tears were okay. Maybe Atlantis hadn't trapped them. Maybe they'd trapped each other.

When they were half a mile or so from the jumper, McKay's alarmed voice tore Cadman from her reverie as he looked with nurtured panic between her and his scanner.

"We've got a problem... a very big problem."

"What is it?"

McKay ignored her, reaching down for his radio.

"Sheppard, this is McKay, come in!"

The Colonel's voice was less than crisp, the tenuous signal portly with static.

"What is it, Rodney?"

"I'm reading a _massive _build-up of energy on the south side of the continent."

"What kind of energy?"

"The catastrophic kind!" McKay gibed. "Think minor nuclear explosion without the radiation."

"What the hell could be causing that?"

"I don't know, and as much as I appreciate your sudden interest in the Scientific American end of this conversation, it is progressing quite literally a mile a second! We have to get out of here, _now_!"

Sheppard's voice was nearly distorted beyond discernment, but McKay could make it out.

"Then get the hell up here, Rodney! We're waiting for you!"

One earnest glance at Cadman was all it took for the pair to break off into a fierce sprint. When he put his legs into it, she was impressed at how well he could keep up with her. Some small part of her filed away the knowledge that his slow pace was generally a matter of lethargy.

The beeping on his scanner grew more vehement with each second. A quick glance down told him that they weren't but a few minutes ahead of the tempest. They would cutting it very, very close.

"Rodney, I don't know if we have time!" she exclaimed. "We've got cave openings all around us. We might be better waiting it out. I don't think we'll get back to the jumper."

He grunted and picked up his pace, knowing full well the touch of tendinitis in his knees would make sure he felt this later. If there was a later.

"We'll make it!"

"Rodney - !"

"We'll make it!" he growled. "Keep running!"

The closer the beeps got together, the more it reminded him of the sound his car used to make when he started the engine without his seatbelt on. He missed sounds like that, warnings of the decidedly mundane. No one back home was running at break-neck speed from a mysteriously destructive electro-magnetic build-up. That was a bone-chilling executioner he could only find here in the Pegasus galaxy.

He could make out the jumper in the distance now, sparing a glance at his scanner again. It was 120 miles out now, two painfully short minutes from imbibing them. Sheppard's outline became clear. So did Teyla's behind them. They'd make it. It would be close, but they'd make it.

For all the bad luck he suffered day in and day out, it seemed providence that they'd taken the jumper on this mission. The gate was planetary, not in orbit, but they'd wanted an aerial view first. It was a rather small world, so the flight hadn't taken them long. They'd set down near the gate and split off into three groups. Sheppard and Lorne and company didn't share McKay's sense of scientific wonder, so the others had finished their exploration quickly and had been waiting on he and Cadman for some time.

It wasn't far now. Sheppard and Teyla were close enough that he could hear them shouting to him, beckoning him closer.

The scanner's shrill yelps were growing deafening. 75 seconds.

So consumed was he by the cacophonous warnings of the Ancient device in his hand that he could no longer make out his team's desperate calls to him and he didn't hear Cadman's yowl of surprise as she tripped over a loose rock and went tumbling to the ground, where her head met the soil, knocking from her the sense to get back up, leaving her in that helpless malaise where all things urgent go unaddressed. McKay didn't hear her when she lazily called his name.

He just kept running, drawing closer and closer to safety. Sheppard's forehead was creased with fear, Teyla's capacious eyes saturated with a concern more acute than he could ever recall there. Their voices fell still on ears lost in the chasms of terror, but he just kept running.

45 seconds. His team wasn't but ten feet away.

With what amounted to a lunge, McKay's legs gave out and he shot forward, destined for the ground but for the strong, sure arms of Sheppard, who caught him as he fell and hauled him back up to a proper stance.

They were still talking to him. What were they saying?

The fog lifted.

"Rodney!"

McKay tried to speak through hungry, fevered breaths that made him certain he was dying, but he couldn't find the words. He turned his head back to look at Cadman, but she wasn't there. There was only emptiness where there should have been life, and as his eyes searched the near distance, he saw her on the ground, motionless but for the random, languid movements of the unaware.

"Rodney, how much time!"

He shuddered and checked the scanner.

"30 seconds!"

Teyla sprung into action, clearly intending to retrieve Cadman, but Sheppard let go of McKay's arm and reached out to grab hers in a vise-like grip.

"It's too late! We gotta go!"

The delay had cost them another three seconds, and Teyla knew that he was right. With a haunted, despondent shiver, she retreated into the jumper.

"We can't leave her here!" McKay shouted.

"McKay, there's no time!"

The scientist ignored him and found his footing, turning to run. Sheppard caught his arm before he'd even managed a step. The cloud was almost visible in the distance. It would be there in 21 seconds.

"We're not gonna make it, Rodney!"

McKay looked back at him with a resolve that betrayed his trembling terror, his eyes hard and certain, but nevertheless aghast with the consequences of his next words.

"You are."

He gave Sheppard a hard, unexpected shove, which sent the Colonel careening into the back of the jumper, then ran into a future that was all but gone.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: Hello again. Thanks for the reviews as we trudge along here. They're motivating. I'm not sure how well I like this chapter, but we get down to it here. This could become just a bit longer than I thought, but we'll see. Anyway, I hope you enjoy.

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Sheppard hopped back to his feet, starting after his brash-acting friend on instinct, but this time, it was Teyla's firm grip on _his_ arm that stopped him.

"Colonel, we are out of time!" she shouted, much more harshly than she would have liked. "If we don't get out of here now, we never will!"

The caterwauled declaration got through to him as she'd hoped it would. Sheppard ripped his eyes away from McKay's sprinting form and hurried back inside to the cockpit of the jumper, where he slipped into the pilot's seat and began dialing the gate in one effortless motion.

"Lorne, get ready to put in your IDC."

Outside, McKay drew closer to Cadman, but further from the moment with each step. So breathless was he that he was almost certain his brain was being deprived of necessary oxygen. He felt fleeter of foot and lighter of head the nearer he got to his fallen comrade.

With brilliant, blinding flashes stabbing at his eyes, he came within a foot and dropped to his knees at her side.

11 seconds.

She looked up at him with glassy-eyed confusion, but there was a panic smuggled away in some recess of her optics and it reached out and grabbed him by his collar. His breath-fleeced mind got the message loud and clear, and with clumsy, frenzied hands, McKay lifted her to her feet and threw her awkwardly over his shoulder.

7 seconds.

Cadman had been right. He should have listened to her. They shouldn't have tried to get back to the jumper. His self-surprising gallantry would mean nothing in a matter of moments.

McKay's legs were so tired. They begged him to buckle under his and Cadman's combined weight, but he refused, grinding out each step, eight feet away now from the small cave opening that represented their survival.

4 seconds.

Sheppard lined up the jumper dead-center in front of the gate.

"Atlantis, raise the shield when we're through!"

1 second.

The furor rolled in, but it didn't claim Cadman and it didn't claim McKay, who entered the cave and just kept on moving as displaced rock sealed the entrance. It nipped at the heels of Sheppard and his team, but the jumper disappeared into the cool, mercurial fluid of the Stargate, which was then lifted from the ground, disappearing into that vile cloud, almost a living being the way it moved, and whether it was or it wasn't, it had no idea what it had done.

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"What the hell happened out there!"

It was a tone he'd heard countless times from Weir, one usually bred of concern, but manifested as the voice of an angry mother admonishing her children. She wanted the facts and she deserved them, but to hear that voice after what had just happened... it always made things worse.

Sheppard took a breath and raked a hand through his disheveled mane.

"I don't know," he said, much quieter than he might usually. "We were waiting on Rodney and Cadman to finish their survey. It was a long time too, but you know how McKay is."

Weir's tone softened and she sighed.

"Then?"

"Then McKay's on the radio ranting about some energy build-up, like a storm or... I don't know what that thing was."

Teyla spoke up beside him.

"We saw it for but a single instant before we entered the Stargate. It appeared as a massive cloud. The ground and the sky, they disappeared."

Weir swallowed pensively.

"Rodney? And Lt. Cadman?"

Sheppard looked away, meeting Teyla's eyes for a second, then Lorne's, wanting to look anywhere but at Weir, wanting to avoid for as long as he could the details of his shameful act. "Leave no one behind," he'd always said. Well he'd left two now. What was worse, he thought, was that he knew he'd have done it again.

"John?"

He slowly shifted his gaze back to Weir.

"We were... we waited for them. Cadman fell. We only had 20 seconds," he said, unable to meet her scrutinizing eyes for long. "We were short on time. If we went back to get her... we left. I made the call."

"Rodney?"

Sheppard smirked humorlessly.

"Horatio Hornblower went back for her. There wasn't time. It was my call."

Weir nodded, absorbing it. Sheppard's casual comparison was a fit. McKay was a hero without the qualities of a hero and the antagonist of his own life story. He alienated everyone around him, then saved their lives. There were plenty of instances when he needed to be talked into something, but here, it seemed he'd refused to be dissuaded.

She sighed.

"You did the right thing," Weir said. "None of you would be here now."

Sheppard knew she was right, but somehow, that didn't make it better. Was it worth the ones he'd saved if he couldn't stand to be in his own skin for the rest of his life? He felt Teyla's eyes on him and he suddenly knew that it was. The epiphany made him hate himself more.

"Dial the gate," Lorne said, forgotten behind the Colonel. Weir looked quizzical. "They could still be alive."

It was a rather obvious suggestion, but given what had just happened, it wasn't entirely surprising that it hadn't occurred to anyone. It took a moment for Weir to react, but when she did, her movements were decisive.

She started up the stairs to the control room, calling out to a crewman.

"Dial it."

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McKay didn't remember it, but somewhere along the way, he'd apparently eased Cadman off his shoulders, her cognitive reserves replenished enough that she could manage to walk – well, amble really – with McKay's firm grip to guide her.

The scientist's hoarse, labored pants echoed through the cave as they went. Logic dictated that they'd gone far enough, that they were safe, but McKay was going on instinct and Cadman barely that. They just kept walking a ways, neither saying a word, neither really capable.

He hadn't seen the jumper go through the gate, but somehow it didn't concern him. He just knew that it had, as if possessed by some second sight, the kind that was always telling him something, but which he ignored, his mind – though capacious – too filled already with the universe's unexplained to make room for ponderances of his own ties to the metaphysical.

McKay was numb and angry and melancholic and petrified, cast in the crucible of a brash decision that he could hardly believe he'd made. He shouldn't have had to, though.

If he had listened to Cadman, none of this would have happened.

If she hadn't fallen, none of this would have happened.

If he'd seen her fall, none of this would have happened.

If Sheppard hadn't so aggressively restrained Teyla, who'd thought to act quickly, none of this would have happened.

But he hadn't, and she had, and he hadn't, and he had. The past is static.

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"Chevron seven will not engage, ma'am."

It was their third attempt. No one retorted quickly this time. No one barked at him to try again. The reality of his words hung in the air like a contagious disaffection. Could this really be the end of the road for McKay? The stubborn bastard had survived much worse, hadn't he?

Sheppard stepped back from the console, scrubbing his face with a bitter, ungentle hand. Teyla watched him out of the corner of her eye, her head cast down. It had all happened so quickly.

The young crewman spoke tentatively.

"Should I try again?"

Weir stepped up from behind the pack, taking a long, hard look at the inactive Stargate. Then she slowly shook her head, easily fighting back the urge to cry. There was a time and a place for that, and it didn't exist in this galaxy.

"No," she said, a firm shake of her head. "No, that's all."

Sheppard's eyes were wild.

"That's _all_? That's **all**, Elizabeth?"

Her own eyes were anything but placid and the grim, scornful look she shot him would have been enough to pacify just about anyone, but Sheppard was unfazed as she replied.

"It's gone, Colonel," she said tightly. "The Daedalus will be back in two and a half days. We'll send Colonel Caldwell to the planet to look for them... to find out what happened. Lord knows I'm open to suggestions, John, but we both know that gate's gone."

Sheppard's face had never looked so cold.

"Nothing's gone. _Nothing's **over**_. How many times has every last bit of evidence we had pointed to Rodney being finished, to me being dead, to this city being gone? You know what we've seen here, Elizabeth, and you and I both know that this is just too God damn anticlimactic an exit for Rodney. He wouldn't stand for it, and if he _were_ dead, he'd already be in the spirit world haunting our asses down every corridor."

Teyla smiled faintly at that last part. It wasn't difficult to imagine McKay getting his two cents in from the other side of darkness. She'd never despised quiet so much as she had when the scientist wasn't around. His endless stammering, his brilliant epiphanies, his caricatural defensiveness – she adored them.

Weir's expression was more mild now, but she didn't respond to any of Sheppard's diatribe. Rather, she turned calmly to Lorne and his team, to Ronan and Teyla.

"Report to Dr. Beckett for your physicals."

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McKay watched Cadman sleep. She hadn't been very responsive as they'd walked, but had cooperated enough for him to settle her onto her back in the meager alcove where they'd stopped. It was the first time he'd ever had occasion to see her like this, peaceful, slumbering, and the unwanted joy he felt at the opportunity helped smooth the creases of fear and despair that were plaguing him.

He took solace in the fact that he had enough food and water in his pack for several days if they rationed it right, but felt a pang of guilt that he'd eaten her energy bar earlier when he had several of his own. It was more typical of him than he would have liked to admit. He'd change that.

Even considering that they'd be able to get by with what they had for a week, he wasn't sure what they'd do after that. There was no telling what the devastation was on the surface, if vegetation or animal life had been able to survive, but even if they had, McKay and Cadman needed to find another way out of the cave to access them. The entrance had folded on itself after they'd gone through.

The situation was most certainly dire, but he had to keep it together. Cadman's head injury hadn't seemed too severe to him, but he couldn't know that for sure. His knowledge of medicine was hardly adequate enough to make a conclusive diagnosis. Still, he'd given her a mild dose of Perkacet from Beckett's ever-expanding First Aid kit and let her rest, reasonably confident that she'd be fine. She had to be.

McKay's body shook as he leaned against the cave wall and squeezed his eyes shut. He was alone. Cadman was there, but she wasn't conscious, spared the enormity of their predicament for now. The scientist wondered if this was how the alternate Weir had felt after Janus and the Ancients departed for Earth, entirely alone in the massive lost city, nothing to console her but the memory of how alive it had once been. What a terrible feeling that had to be, but at least her cause had been noble. She'd had a purpose. All McKay had was the prospect of a meaningless demise and the sleeping form of a woman he wanted so badly to hate.

It was a joke to even try, though. On a physical level, he'd always been attracted to Cadman. It was impossible not to be, given that he was a heterosexual male with fairly traditional tastes. She was something too precious to condense into the word "beautiful." That attraction aside, though, he'd at first been turned off by her personality. In some ways, she was a less acidic version of McKay himself, but she was much more extroverted and much easier to socialize with. He thought maybe part of him envied her that, that he grew frustrated seeing in her the potential he had to be liked by the general masses.

Those who knew him, who understood him, often considered him a friend. Sheppard and Teyla and Weir and Beckett and Radek made that list, but he couldn't think of too many others. Cadman had said today that they were friends. That surprised him, and though he'd done his best to make it appear to the contrary, it was a revelation he knew he'd cherish. He'd tried for months to hold on to how unsettled he was after she'd been inside his head, but found it difficult. She'd been privy to his very essence and it hadn't repulsed her as he thought it might most. Cadman accepted him, and in spite of his persnickety nature, she made the effort to be his friend.

And here and now, he needed her. There was no one else to turn to, no one coming to save the day, and he knew from experience that circumstance gave birth to kinship, whether you wanted it or not.

McKay heard her stir and his eyes shot open.

Cadman 's head lifted slowly off the pack she'd been using as a pillow, seeking out McKay in the pale light offered by the glow sticks sitting a couple from her.

"Rodney?"

He hauled himself up onto one leg and scooted to her side, helping her sit up.

"How are you feeling?"

She gripped his wrist absently to help support herself.

"Like I'll never tap-dance again."

McKay didn't give her any indication that he knew she was joking. He just nodded calmly, leaving his hand at the base of her neck, even though she was upright of her own accord now. She stared at him a moment, then let go of his other wrist, making no effort to shrug his hand off.

"Where are we, Rodney?"

"We're in one of the caverns... fairly deep, actually. I think I got a little carried away."

Cadman let out something resembling a laugh.

"Always the eager beaver," she said. "Colonel Sheppard, Major Lorne?"

McKay removed his hand from her neck and sat back, leaning against the wall again with a tired sigh.

"Gone."

She stiffened.

"You mean – "

"No, no, I'm sorry. They're fine. I mean, they went back through the gate."

Cadman nodded, but it was clear there was some small measure of confusion at work in her mind. McKay noticed.

"You fell on the way back to the jumper. There wasn't time, so they left."

She inclined her head in understanding, remembering now.

"You didn't see me. You kept running."

McKay turned away in guilt. If he'd only just seen her, they'd be back on Atlantis being ribbed by Sheppard about another close call. They'd be taking hot showers and retiring to their quarters and sleeping the sleep of the dead. But they were here.

He felt her hand on his shoulder, gently pressuring him to look at her again. The scientist didn't deny her.

"No, I didn't see you," he said quietly.

"But you came back for me."

"Yes."

"You could have left me."

"I wasn't thinking straight."

"Yes, you were."

McKay opened his mouth to rebut, but the words never came. He just looked back at her, at the undeserved gratitude in her eyes. Cadman smiled at the sight of him, soft-faced and guilty, his usual bravado lost to the cloud on the surface. She wanted to cry, to kiss to him to show him that she understood. She grabbed his hand.

"Thank you," Cadman said. "I promise I would have come back for you too."

McKay nodded mutely. She knew he believed her. The scientist stared at their joined hands with fascination, surprised at how natural a sight it seemed. They fit together perfectly.

His grip tightened and she could feel him shudder.

"Are you okay, Rodney?"

He nodded again, afraid to speak. His news year's resolution was to stop opening his mouth when he wasn't sure what would come out. So far, so good.

Cadman wasn't satisfied, though, and when he felt her hand on his face, he couldn't help but look at her again and he couldn't help but speak. There was a palpable self-depreciation in his voice.

"I'm, ah, a little claustrophobic..."

"I remember."

He narrowed his eyes in confusion.

"I told you that?"

"No, I remember you feeling it. Having me in your head, it made you feel trapped."

"Oh."

She smiled.

"I was the one locked in the genius' mind, though, so I don't know why it was you that felt so claustrophobic."

McKay snorted.

"Please, my brilliance is like an open field. You probably felt alive for the very first time."

There was the astrophysicist she knew. He didn't keep on like that, though. Cadman was about to continue their banter, but she he could see she didn't have his attention anymore. He was staring down at their tangled hands again, looking at them in amazement. It occurred to her that he probably wasn't used to this kind of physical contact. Something about it perplexed him.

When McKay realized what he was doing, he released her hand.

"Sorry."

Cadman smiled reassuringly, reaching out and grasping his again.

"You don't have to give it back yet, Rodney."

He looked at her a moment, then nodded dumbly, graciously, and she squeezed his hand. It was a rock-solid touch.

They sat in silence for a little bit, but eventually, Cadman's mind got past the here and now, departed its musings about McKay, and she began to wonder about their situation.

"I don't need you to write me a schedule or anything, but when are we getting out of here?"

McKay's grip tightened painfully.

"The entrance is blocked. We're gonna have to look for another way out."

The weight of his words settled on her chest, but she didn't react except to strengthen her own grip.

"The gate?"

"Most likely destroyed."

"Then how are we getting out of here?"

McKay regretted his next words as soon as he said them, but her warm touch had turned off the filter in his brain.

"We're probably not."

If it were anyone else who'd said it, Cadman would have felt an overwhelming despair, but something about McKay's typically theatrical delivery made her laugh, a long, warm, genuine chuckle that made him jump in surprise. He looked at her in confusion.

"There's your bright news from Doctor McKay," she laughed. "If you need him to prescribe you 30 milligrams of optimism, just dial his number: 1-800-I-Hate-the-Universe."

"I'm glad our imminent demise is such a knee-slapper!" he snapped back. "You can laugh it up all the way to the great beyond! Forget about the fact that we're going to die under a hundred feet of uninhabitable land or that our last days are going to be spent in damp, dark depths that would give Satan Seasonal Affective Disorder! Let's just make sure Cadman has a good time before we become a pile of bones that no one's ever going to find for the next thousand years because – "

He trailed off in flustered confoundment when Cadman brought his hand to her lips and tenderly kissed the back of it. She almost laughed again at the frightened bewilderment in his eyes, but she settled for a wry, affectionate smile.

"Calm down, you old grouch."

McKay nodded disorientedly, watching intently as she rewarded him with another brief touch of her lips across his knuckles before lowering their entwined fingers to her lap. It was the most intimate gesture anyone had made in the last twenty years. He didn't know quite how to take it, only that it made him feel more cared about than anything had since his mother died when he was a kid.

Cadman seemed to know the significance it carried with him, appearing quite satisfied with herself. She hadn't planned it and she hadn't known her affections for McKay ran any deeper than that of a friend with a unique perspective on him, but something had clicked these past few minutes. There had been a natural and undeniable shift in the dynamics of their interaction, but some part of her assured her that this wasn't a reaction to their glowering dilemma. The things she was feeling were genuine and they'd been there for a while, crystallized now with the angst of their coming expiration.

She thought back to their conversation earlier, to the query she'd posed him. He'd reacted with his standard mordancy, but she'd known at the time that a more serious reply had been lurking in his throat, and she'd known later when he talked about things making sense inside his lab that there had been far more to it than he'd offered her.

Cadman asked him again.

"Do you ever feel trapped, Rodney?"

"Besides being stranded in a cave on an alien world in another galaxy where our only way home has likely been destroyed?"

She rolled her eyes.

"Yeah, besides that."

McKay turned away from the light to escape the whine of pain drifting through his skull. She wanted a serious answer and he knew he owed it to her. Deep down, in places he didn't visit, he knew he wanted to tell her anyway.

"Yeah, I do," he said. "When we were cut off from Earth, all I could think about was how much things would be better when we could dial home again. We wouldn't be alone anymore."

"But they weren't better, were they?"

"No, they were worse. Suddenly, just because we were getting mail, it was like everyone was supposed to be okay. Just because your Uncle Larry sends you a letter about how retirement's treating him doesn't mean things are any different," McKay said, a hint of frustration in his voice. "The things we go through are absolutely insane. People back on Earth get to sulk about bad credit and HMOs. But here, there's alien possessions, shared consciousness, Wraith sieges, enzyme addictions, alternate selves, overloading ZPMs, and... and torture."

Cadman's breath caught in her throat at that last part. She'd never heard anything about torture before, certainly not any McKay had suffered. Even she, who had been trained to withstand a myriad of interrogation methods, wasn't certain how she would fair if it came down to it. McKay was a civilian, though. He'd known the risks when he joined the expedition, for sure, but the chances were good that that thought had never crossed his mind.

"Torture, Rodney?"

He licked his dry lips.

"Yeah."

Cadman looked down at their hands as she pondered a reply, but something caught her eye, a two-inch scar that was just a bit jagged. It looked like a knife wound. She let go of his hand and cradled his forearm.

McKay opened his eyes, then wished he hadn't as he watched her run her fingertips over the marred flesh. He let out a bit of a gasp, which coaxed her gaze back to his. All he could see in her was compassion, one not tempered by the need to maintain a professional distance or a fear of what intimacy might bring.

"I talked," he said softly. "They wanted to know things and that knife wasn't in there long before I told them. It hurt so bad."

Cadman nodded sympathetically.

"And who knows how much worse they might have hurt you if you hadn't told them what they wanted to know. They could have killed you. No one in their right mind would ever blame you for what you did."

He didn't respond to that, his eyes fixed to a point just to the right of her head, distant and detached as he remembered something peculiar, something suddenly compelling. Cadman knew he'd speak eventually, so she just waited patiently, running her hand up and down his arm to make sure he felt her.

"It's funny. You know what I was thinking when they did that?"

"What?"

"I was thinking about that alternate Elizabeth."

Cadman frowned.

"Alternate Elizabeth?"

"It's a long story," he said, finally meeting her eyes again. "But we found Dr. Weir – a second Dr. Weir – in a stasis chamber in Atlantis. She'd been there for 10,000 years..."

Cadman's shocked expression didn't register with him. He continued as if it were an anecdote about going to the supermarket.

"We revived her, but she was dying. The thing I remember, though, is the way Elizabeth interacted with her. She was kind and very tactile. She brushed her hair back and she stroked her cheek."

"That's gotta be about the weirdest feeling in history."

"Yeah, but for some reason, I couldn't help but think how wonderful that was. That was kind of, uh, ah – I'm not one to be all Sleepless-in-Seattle about this kinda thing – but it was beautiful."

His eyes fell.

"And when Kolya dug that knife into my arm, all I could think afterward was that I wished I could step outside myself and touch my own face, look in my own eyes because I'd be looking at someone who understood."

Cadman watched him recede back inside himself for a moment and knew she had to act quickly. She lifted his chin with a firm, open hand. He tried to avoid looking at her at first, but after a few seconds, he gave up.

"Rodney," she said softly, brushing her hand through the hair at his temple. "You're looking at someone who understands."

McKay smiled, tentatively but gratefully. He believed her.

His smile disappeared, though, as the seconds wore on and something in her face changed. Gone was concern and compassion and heartfelt affection. For the first time, he could see how scared she was. She'd joked earlier, tried to keep the mood light, and then she'd tried to connect with him. But now she'd done those things and all that was left was their daunting crisis. She needed something.

"What is it?"

It was the kindest voice she'd ever heard him use.

"I need to know that everything's going to be all right," she whispered shakily, her hand quaking in his hair. He grabbed it and brought it to his lips. "Tell me everything's going to be all right, whether you mean it or you don't."

McKay took her face in hands, speaking slowly and calmly.

"It's going to be okay, Laura."

The pads of his thumbs began smooth, slow circles on her cheeks. She believed him. She'd never believed anyone more, whether he meant it or he didn't.

McKay leaned in and captured her lips in a faint, fleeting kiss that reminded her of Earth.


	3. Chapter 3

A/N: So, it's... been a little while. I hang my head in shame. I'd pretty much forgotten this story existed, but after a message from ammanalien, I decided to revisit it. I'm very insecure about whether or not this installment was "worth the wait." In fact, it's probably not. But for those of you who so very kindly left me positive and pleasant reviews, I'm sorry it took so, so long, and I hope you enjoy. I really will try to finish this!

* * *

Life's ins and outs were a fascinating thing. It had always intrigued him how well an animal could come to know them, relative to their vantage point. At the basest level, there were beasts and insects, the creatures who knew not the wonders of existence but through a small Darwinian lens. Then there were your cruder primates – apes and lemurs and such – who could more aptly retain and intelligently communicate information. But still, they had no capacity to muse. 

Then there were humans, the arrogant stewards of the known corporeal universe, who – without sufficient imagination to understand the consequences – set out to imperialize their own and other galaxies, never content to rest on their laurels. Man would perish from sadness when the last frontier was settled.

They didn't know as much as they thought they did, though. They weren't as capable as they liked to believe. Despite everything they'd discovered, as the allegory went, there was always someone closer to the light outside the cave.

These nearest that light were the ascended. They knew infinitely more about the machinations of space and time than did the human race, but they too were arrogant and limited, driven by some pompous desire to be enlightenment's ultimate end. There were things even they didn't know, though, things known to none but God.

And whatever it was that God didn't know was left to the damned departed.

McKay shot upright.

Cadman's body, which had been pressed against his chest, was thrown off of him. She landed awkwardly beside him, jolted awake.

Sleep's fog still upon her like water after the rain, she tried to sit up, her senses lagging. McKay was there beside her, his Beretta pointed into the darkness, at what she couldn't see. He looked terrified.

"Rodney?" she mumbled.

"Shut up!" he snapped, a mild tremor running through him. "I heard something."

Cadman's military training switched on like a light, and she grabbed McKay's P-90 from the ground beside her, aiming it out into the same blank void as his pistol.

Neither of them spoke after that, each of them swallowing shallow, pensive breaths as the darkness stared back at them with nothing at all to say. She could make out McKay's terror in the dim light provided by the glow sticks, but she couldn't ascertain its source.

The young soldier couldn't hear a thing, save the eerie hum of the labyrinthine caverns that hadn't changed since they arrived. Maybe it was the storm he heard, still swirling above their heads. Or maybe it was just the scientist's mind, conjuring from his sleep a dream.

When she'd waited for a minute patiently, she finally lowered her gun.

"There's nothing out there, Rodney," she said softly. When he didn't move, she laid a hand on his shoulder. "It was just your imagination."

McKay shook his head emphatically.

"No, I heard _something_! It was definitely out there."

Cadman let out a quiet sigh, but decided it best to indulge him.

"What did it sound like?"

McKay sighed himself, an exhausted, self-deprecating suspiration that made the lieutenant ache.

"I don't know," he said, finally lowering his gun. "It sounded kind of like…"

The scientist caught himself, trailing off and shaking his head as if that alone would end the matter. He might have known better, though.

Cadman reached over, gently pulling the gun from his lap and setting it down a few feet away. If McKay noticed, he didn't react, just looked back at her as she regarded him inquisitively.

"It sounded like…" she prompted.

McKay shook his head again.

"It doesn't matter. It obviously couldn't be what I'm thinking, so what's the point?"

Cadman rolled her eyes, frustrated.

"_Humor_ me."

She could see the wall going up in front of McKay when she said that, and the predictable bluster rolled right off his tongue.

"Sorry, I'm all out of _humor_ right now!" he bellowed. "But if you leave me a number where you can be reached, I'll call you when the next shipment comes in."

Cadman raised an eyebrow, but wasn't fazed. Her lack of reaction surprised McKay, though he supposed it shouldn't have, and he immediately felt guilty for snapping at her. Without a word passing between them, the scientist smiled a self-doubting apology, and it was accepted without reservation.

He supposed he owed her an answer, though it was probably more trouble than it was worth. Still, she looked expectant, genuinely curious even, so he obliged her and began to speak.

"When I was a kid, there this was this old man who lived down the street from me in this shoddy two-story. It was the ugliest thing in the neighborhood. I remember everyone was always trying to convince him to sell it or renovate it, but he always refused to. He was just one of those crotchety old men…"

Cadman tilted her head, wondering what this could possibly have to do with McKay aiming a gun in the dark, but she listened intently.

"He was a real recluse, almost never came outside. Once a week, some guy would come by and give him groceries – maybe his son or something. Anyway, the kids in the neighborhood would always be sneaking around outside, looking over his fence, trying to get a glimpse through the window. There was, um, a, uh… kind of… mystique around the guy. People started telling all kinds of stories about him…"

"What about you? You go look over his fence?"

McKay rolled his eyes.

"Oh, _please_. I was _much_ too busy becoming one of the great child prodigies of western civilization." He continued, ignoring her snort. "But my parents always used to talk about him, and I'd listen in. I have freakishly good hearing, actually. It's one of my more underrated gifts."

"I'm sure it is," Cadman replied dryly.

"Apparently he'd been a singer when he was younger, the kind who would do Sinatra numbers in a smoky club. Smoked a lot himself too, because eventually he got cancer. Couldn't sing anymore, so he kind of became a hermit."

"I had an uncle who was a piano player. He lost his arms in Vietnam."

McKay shook his head, looking angry or despondent or a dark confection of both.

"It's sick."

"What is?"

"The way the universe feeds on you like the Wraith never could."

Cadman frowned, but said nothing. McKay continued.

"One night, I was out on the swings with Jeanie real late after mom and dad went to bed…"

"Is that your sister?"

He nodded.

"We were out there for maybe an hour, trying to see who could go higher. But I'm not great with heights. I got a little, um… shall we say…"

"Scared?"

"That's probably not the _best_ word, but – "

"Petrified? Terrified?"

"Okay, let's go with scared!"

Cadman hid her grin.

"Anyway, Jeanie wouldn't let me hear the end of it… called me a scaredy-cat. I got upset and said I wasn't afraid of anything. I told her to give me a dare and I'd go do it."

"She dared you to hop the old man's fence."

McKay smirked, lost in the memory.

"No, that I could have handled. She told me to go into the old man's _house_ and come back with something."

Cadman leaned in, her face not far from his, a mischievous smile forming.

"You didn't."

"There was a window half-open, led into his basement. I was kind of scrawny back then, so I squeezed in easy."

"Did he catch you?"

"I wandered around the basement for a couple minutes looking for something good to take. I figured if I was there, I might as well, uh, take something of note. But before I found anything – and I remember this as if it were happening right now – I looked up the stairs, and I saw him in the shadows looking down at me."

"What did he do?"

"He just stared at me, but what I've always remembered is the way he breathed."

"Breathed?"

"He'd had a laryngectomy because of the cancer, and he just stood there breathing. It was the most terrifying sound I've ever heard in my life. I was paralyzed. I couldn't move until I finally heard Jeanie's voice, screaming for me to come back outside. When I heard her, I ran, and climbed out the window and hopped the fence."

McKay shook his head, his forehead creasing.

"To this day, that scares the crap out of me."

Cadman could have taken the moment to tease him, but something told her now wasn't the time. She watched his eyes survey the ground and the cave wall, as if they were of utter amazement. When she placed her hand on his shoulder, so softly he might not have known it was there, he turned to face her.

"That's what you heard, isn't it?" she asked. "The breathing."

McKay didn't answer her question, but he didn't have to. He kept her eyes a moment, then looked away again, retrieving his Beretta from the ground and slipping it back into his holster.

"I think we've rested here enough. We need to look for another way out of here."

"A way _out_? Whatever that storm is, I doubt it's gone."

"Yeah, well, it's better than waiting here to die, isn't it?"

Cadman shook her head, smiling wryly as she gathered her pack from the ground.

"Is doomsday banter going to typify our relationship, Rodney? Because I have to admit, that's kind of a deal-breaker for me."

McKay froze, his eyes growing comically wide, as if caught in the hold of a bad trip.

"Did you say relationship?"

Cadman stood, offering her hand to the surprised scientist, who looked up at her with something like wonder.

"Yes, why? You're not one of those love-em'-and-leave-em' guys are you? I thought that was Sheppard."

McKay accepted her hand, surprised at her strength as she assisted him to his feet.

"No, no, of course not," he fumbled. "I, um – no – well, I mean, once in college, but I think maybe she was sleeping with my roommate anyway because he'd always have this smug look when I got back from – " He cut himself off when he saw her smirking at him. "Sorry, you… probably don't want to know about that, do you?"

Cadman smiled encouragingly as she leaned down to gather the glow sticks from the damp ground.

"Come on, McKay," she said, handing him one of the small lights. "You can tell me all about it if you keep it PG and vague."

The scientist cleared his throat awkwardly.

"No, no, that's… quite all right," he mumbled, comforted by the way their arms touched as they set out into the dark.

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A/N: Hope you enjoyed. Not too sure about this one. Leave a review, and you will be rewarded with... well, my gratitude!


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